


it's just a simple symphony

by caersun



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Pre-Canon, Yuuri's Years in Detroit
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-07
Updated: 2017-02-07
Packaged: 2018-09-22 14:03:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,459
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9610652
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/caersun/pseuds/caersun
Summary: Yuuri is already shaking his head. “You know I don’t like parties, Phichit.”Phichit whines, “Aw, but, Yuuri, you’re so fun at them!” He pulls out his phone, clicking and scrolling until he comes to a video he must've taken a month ago. He turns the phone to show Yuuri.Yuuri gapes. “I thought you deleted that!”In the video, Yuuri is getting into position to do a kegstand. Two fraternity brothers help him, holding his legs aloft in a perfect pointe that would make Minako proud. Raucous cheers and egging sound out from the phone speakers, accompanied by the tinny chant of his name—Kat-su-ki! Kat-su-ki! Kat-su-ki!Yuuri screams, launching himself at Phichit.Phichit pulls his phone out of his reach, laughing. “It’s for posterity!”Or: A lot can happen in five years.





	

**Author's Note:**

> i have no excuse for what is essentially "yuuri's college and skating adventures in detroit: the fic," aside from the fact that i had a mighty need to see yuuri get mcfriggin _smashed_ during his time in college. unfortunately, that is not this chapter; that's some year-two, post-phichit yuuri stuff, next chapter and beyond. but rest assured, phichit is cometh. 
> 
> title from the sad, melodic tones of "canvas" by rezonate, which is a very yuuri tune. 
> 
> if you too would give your life for my personal lifecoach and role model katsuki yuuri, you should come scream about it with me over on [tumblr](http://caersun.tumblr.com/).

Yuuri tries very hard not to cry, all up until the moment Vicchan untangles himself from his leash and leaps up at Yuuri’s legs, whining. Then, all bets are off. He barely contains himself from sobbing outright in the middle of the train station with all his friends and family ready to send him off.

Shakily, Yuuri bends to pet Vicchan, tears leaking out of the corners of his eyes.

“You’ll be good for them, won’t you?” he whispers, pushing his fingers through the brown curls under Vicchan’s ears. The fur feels impossibly soft beneath his hands, like a stuffed animal’s, and Yuuri is suddenly struck by how _small_ Vicchan is, panting at his feet, top paws barely coming up to below his knees.

Vicchan barks, high and keen, a confused sound as Yuuri stands.

“Okay,” Yuuri says, wiping his eyes. He attempts a smile that is braver than he feels. “I’m off.”

There’s another round of hugs and squeezes as his family, Minako, and the Nishigori’s wish him well. They make him promise to call when he gets to Tokyo, and again when he lands in America. Yuuri nods, swallowing the lump is his throat. He knows he's white-knuckling the handle of his suitcase, but he can't seem to loosen his grip.

It hits him all at once: he's moving away to Detroit to pursue a professional skating career. All of a sudden, it seems very final, this huge leap away from the life he’s always known to go to school in a foreign country and keep on training. It is as if, until now, he had never truly believed he would be able to make it this far, or that his dream of one day skating on the same ice as his idol, Victor Nikiforov, would be so close. It does not seem real. Despite all his awards in the Novice and Junior competitions, despite hearing the engine of the train at his back, Yuuri can hardly believe it: he is to be Katsuki Yuuri, professional figure skater, representative of his country on the world stage.

Yuuri’s staring down at Vicchan, watching him play with the loose tie of his shoes, misty-eyed and nervous, thinking himself into a spiral, when three sudden weights threaten to topple him over. He looks down. It’s the triplets, wrapped around his ankles, muttering in their own strange baby language. They’re crying.

“Axel-Lutz-Loop!” Yuuko exclaims, in that way she does where already the triplets’ names have started to run together. “Let Yuuri go!” She kneels, attempting to extricate the girls, but they’re clinging tightly enough that Yuuri ends up falling back on his ass with the motion.

Abruptly, the buzz in Yuuri’s head clears. Vicchan licks at his ear. Yuuri laughs, stooping to pick himself and one of the girls up in his arms. The other two dutifully pick themselves from the ground, too, used to tumbles in the way only toddlers can be, immediately going back to hug Yuuri around his calves. His family and Minako laugh, great bright sounds. Takeshi and Yuuko are caught between apologizing profusely to Yuuri, saying how very sorry they are for the trouble, and barely containing their own laughter. At their feet, Vicchan leaps, barking again and attracting attention.

Yuuri waves off Takeshi and Yuuko. He hitches Loop higher on his hip and asks, voice teasing, “You don’t want me to go?”

Up until a month ago, Yuuri had been under the impression the triplets absolutely despised him, seeing as they took every opportunity to torment him by hiding his glasses and tripping him up on his way to the rink. But then Yuuri had admitted to Yuuko his plans to move to America to continue his ice-skating, and—surprise of surprises—the triplets could not have been more distressed. It had been pretty satisfying, then, when the triplets declared Yuuri to be their favorite person on the face of the planet and how please, please, please he couldn't go when he still had to teach them how to skate.

So when Loop cries out, “No!” in perfect sync with her sisters, Yuuri has to fight down a smile.

“But don’t you want to see me skate?” he asks, attempting a pout. Loop hesitates, a considering look appearing on her chubby face. “That’s what I’m going off to do, you know. I’m going to get better and keep skating in the Senior division. One day, I’m even going to skate alongside Victor Nikiforov at the Grand Prix Final. Don’t you want to see that?”

The invocation of Victor’s name has the desired effect, as it always does: the triplets go quiet, wide-eyed with wonder. Behind them, Takeshi sniggers.

Loop says, "Victor—"

"—Nikiforov?" finishes Lutz.

"Really?" asks Axel.

Yuuri’s smile softens. He sets Loop back down alongside her sisters, who have finally loosened their death-grips on his legs, and nods. "Definitely."

It doesn’t take long after that for Takeshi and Yuuko to persuade the triplets back into their carrier, now murmuring to themselves about Victor and Yuuri competing against one another on the ice. It's pretty terrifying—barely two-years-old and already scheming. Yuuri would feel sorry for Takeshi and Yuuko, if the triplets' prime target for scheming were not Yuuri himself. How it is, when they wave at him in muted farewell and make closing motions with their tiny fists (bye-bye!), Yuuri just waves back, bemused.

Overhead, a woman on the speakers announces the train for Tokyo will be departing soon. Yuuri looks up, caught off guard, then back down, eyes gone wide again. This is really happening.

His mother pushes him forward, gentle, one last contact, sweeping the hair out of his eyes. "Hurry," she says, "before you miss your train."

"Call when you get to Tokyo," his father reminds him.

"I will," says Yuuri, nodding and smiling. He trips as he boards the train, looking back as often as he is, distracted by Vicchan's whining. "Goodbye! Take care!"

~+~

“Hmm. You keep over-rotating your triple axel.”

Yuuri winces and looks away. “I know.”

Celestino drums his fingers on the barrier to the ice, lips pursed. Yuuri tries not to fidget under his gaze, keeping himself straight by sheer force of will, but it’s a near thing. It is Yuuri's second practice with Celestino as his coach, his fourth day in America, and he doubts it will ever get easier to hear this criticism, constructive though it is, no matter how much Yuuri knows he needs it.

Finally, Celestino says, “Build more momentum before you jump, _si_? Let that lead. Make it tighter. Now try again.”

Yuuri nods, brusque. He pushes off onto the ice and tries to land the triple—and falls. He picks himself up, keeps trying, and falls, over and over. His frustration mounts with every slip of his feet and hand on the ice. From the barrier, Celestino says his name. Yuuri ignores him.

One more time.

He goes half a circuit around the rink, building momentum. Brings his feet together. Jumps. Rotates, just once—twice—thrice—

He comes down, one clean landing among a dozen that were not.

“That was good, Yuuri!” Celestino calls out, flagging him down.

 _Good_ , Yuuri thinks, frowning and gasping, sweat beading past his hairline. _But not good_ enough.

He can do better. He knows he can. He just needs to keep pushing.

~+~ 

On the other hand, off the ice, he might have pushed too hard when he disregarded his academic advisor's recommendation and took five courses instead of four for his first semester. The coursework piles up, his professors speak too fast for him to take proper notes, especially at first, and all of his exams usually happen one of top of the other, usually two or three within the same week. It doesn't help that any time he could be using to study he has to spend out at the rink.

Yuuri quickly finds himself overwhelmed, trying hard to juggle his schoolwork with his practices. Often, he spends his nights bent over a textbook, squinting at the Roman letters, mind caught somewhere between what he’s reading and the choreography of his programs.

He aches, mind and body, stressed and lonely in his one-student dorm. Having this much room to himself is strange, uncomfortable, too used as he is to living at the inn, where people come and go as they please and he only ever had the illusion of privacy. Being on his own, completely, is a new experience Yuuri has already decided he does not like. He tells Celestino as much, but Celestino says he cannot do anything until the school year is over and more rooms become available.

It makes him miss Hasetsu terribly, more than he thought he would. Even when he makes time and tries to call his family once a week to keep them updated—classes and skating going well, yes, he's eating enough, no, he hasn't really made any new friends but his rinkmates are nice—it is not enough. It’s definitely not enough to only be able to see Vicchan through his computer screen whenever Mari Skypes him, always stuck between laughing at Vicchan's exuberance and feeling irreparably guilty that he cannot be there to calm him. It's not enough when Mari admits that Vicchan has taken residence in his old room, sleeping on his bed every night, missing him.

Surrounded by strange people and strange smells and the constant, buzzing activity of Detroit, so different from anything Yuuri is used to, Yuuri almost allows himself to believe the move to America was a mistake. It certainly feels like it, sometimes.

But there on the wall above his bed when Yuuri flops back on stomach, the reminder of why Yuuri is here at all: Victor Nikiforov smiling down at him, gleaming brightly even by the dim light of his desk lamp.

 _One day_ , Yuuri swears to himself, setting his jaw as he looks at the poster.

 _One day_ , he will skate alongside the same ice as Victor, just as he promised Axel, Lutz, and Loop. One day, Yuuri will meet Victor on the podium, on equal footing, years of childhood fancy coalescing into one moment. And Victor will look at him and him alone, and smile. He might even reach out to shake Yuuri’s hand, a congratulations, the ice-roughened callouses of his palms catching on Yuuri’s own. And then— _then_ everything leading up until that moment, all the lonely nights and grueling exams and bruised feet, will be worth it. Yuuri believes it. He has to. He can't imagine how anything else will ever be close to worth it.

~+~

(In Yuuri’s most private fantasies, those he guards close to his heart, Yuuri sees himself standing _above_ Victor on that podium, smiling down at him, all of Yuuri’s awe and reverence flipped in on itself.

With Victor, there, present for no one else except him.

But as it is, Yuuri doesn’t let himself indulge too long. It will be enough to have Victor’s eyes on him, he tells himself, in whatever way he can have him, when the day comes.)

~+~

His standing leading up the Grand Prix Final is not too bad, according to Celestino, who says placing within the top ten at both Grand Prix qualifiers is something to be proud of, especially for his second year in the Senior division.

But Yuuri is decidedly not proud. He doesn’t want to settle for “not too bad.” He doesn’t want top ten, or even top five. He wants to hit the podium and hold a medal in his hands, to feel the weight of it on his chest. He wants to win. He wants _gold_.

The desire for it is probably selfish, ugly. After all, he’s aware enough to recognize the talent he’s surrounded himself with in the Senior division. Men who have been skating years longer than he has, who have already made their marks on the ice and defend their titles with all the conviction of seasoned veterans of the sport. Yuuri’s a dime-a-dozen now, one professional skater in a sea of professional skaters, one mediocre talent among men who ooze talent out of their pores. He still feels half a boy sometimes, with his messy hair and glasses, gawky and awkward under the television cameras and bright lights.

But the worst of it is knowing—had he skated cleanly, had his programs not been as safe as Celestino advised when Yuuri admitted to his mental weakness, had he been _good enough_ —Yuuri might have placed. It's within his ability; he knows that. Looking at the other skaters, seeing them glide across the ice, Yuuri had known: they were beatable.  _Yuuri_ could _beat them_. But he hadn't. He'd fallen on the triple axel. Downgraded the one quad in his program he was comfortable with—toe loop—into a double. He'd lost.

His one consolation, mid-season and refusing to settle for Celestino’s “not too bad,” is watching Victor take gold for the first time at the Grand Prix Final during the skating club watch party. He stands tall and beautiful at the top of the podium, his long silvery hair pulled away from his face, smiling like a beacon, and Yuuri  _wants_.

So he pushes himself, well past his own mental obstacles. Pushes to change his jump composition, when he finally proves to Celestino he can land his jumps in practice. Pushes to skate longer hours at the rink, now that his exams are over and the new semester has yet to pick up.

He pushes and pushes, exhausted with it, stubborn and clawing forward to improve.

He forgets to call home as often as he should, regaling most of his family communication to texts with Mari, Minako, and Yuuko.

But he doesn't feel too guilty for it when, for the first time, he pushes himself onto the podium, at Nationals.

Silver. He wins silver.

At nineteen, his first medal of his Senior career.

At the awards ceremony, Yuuri holds his medal aloft in his hands, steady for the cameras, knowing Celestino and Minako are in the crowd, cheering. Knowing his family and the Nishigori’s are watching in the dining area of Yutopia at their own watch party. Knowing all of Japan is watching, in one way or another, watching him stand there, for now until next year, officially Japan’s second topmost skater.

It's a victory, what he has waited for for so long.

He tells himself he has no reason to feel sorry for himself, not when silver is perfectly respectable. Definitely preferable to eighth or ninth.

But as the cameras flash and the announcers call out the names of the medalists, Yuuri cannot help but be disappointed.

Suddenly, one day with Victor seems very far away. 


End file.
